Ulster Unionist leader, resigned his post as first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly in July after the Irish Republican Army once again stalled on disarmament. The move threatened to topple the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, thus returning governing powers to the British government from the Northern Irish coalition Parliament. Trimble, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, sought to return to his post in October, after the IRA finally began to dismantle its weapons.